As I said, it’s in poor taste to offer only “well you should’ve…” advice to a victim after the fact. In that context, that’s the wrong thing to say.
But in the broader context of protecting yourself, acting wisely, and advising others on the subject, no, you do not literally have to say it every time. Whether it’s reminding people to lock their car doors and don’t leave valuables in plain sight in the mall parking lot, or reminding people of the risk of sharing intimate information online and how to manage that risk, it can be done in a helpful way without a condescending disclaimer and without being victim blaming.
Your analogy is awful. It would be more like if you gave a copy of your car key to your live in boyfriend and he stole it when you broke up. Boys will be boys I guess.
The conversation went like “here’s a woman ruminating about having her privacy violated in the worst way by someone she trusted” followed by victim blaming. I don’t feel the warm fuzzies that you’re feeling at all about this. Being explicit is important, especially in this day and age.
Not to mention the fact that the poster’s prior history does not give me the confidence you seem to have.
Because no one has spoken up defending the guy or blaming the lady yet. I fully expect that your ever-so-deeply-feared Gamergaters around here would say the same thing: That guy’s an asshole and he shouldn’t have done it.
To bring this back to the car example: If I posted that someone rummaged through my car looking for spare change a few months ago the one night I forgot to lock it (true story!), Rick’s PSA would have been just as applicable. “Remember, folks, lock your car!” Snarky? Sure. Being a jerk? Maybe, if it was directed at me specifically. Missing a line about how breaking into cars is wrong? No; that’s self-evident.
Another analogy where the person doing the bad thing is a criminal instead of someone you trust. We shouldn’t have to treat people we get in relationships with like criminals because our society sees this act as just par for the course in online life rather than a crime.
Dads, make sure you teach your boys (and girls) that this stuff is despicable. Let’s focus on that instead of blaming Jane Doe for being intimate with her partner.
You’re right, my analogy was not good. I should not have used it.
Still not seeing where anyone is blaming her here, though. Take away your first paragraph and I’m in complete agreement with your second. This stuff IS despicable.
…and here’s where I undo that agreement in your eyes: Unfortunately, people are really bad at judging how much they can trust other people. Yes, you SHOULD be able to trust an SO not to spread your pictures around. But if you’re wrong, the pictures end up in the wild. Yes, of course the person who spread them was wrong to do it, but the best way to avoid that betrayal is to not give them pictures in the first place. Reminding everyone of that really isn’t blaming the victim.
Have you guys heard about Deep Fakes? Think that’s the name. Pretty soon there’ll be nudes of anyone you can find pictures of on the Internet, and nobody is going to truly know if they’re real or fake.
Which will make it either better, or worse. Argument for better: permanent plausible deniability if a genuine picture of you gets out there, it wasn’t really me! Also the volume will reduce novelty, and make it less damaging (in theory)
Or worse: it’s almost certain that an interested party with ill intent would be able to spread fake pictures of you. Every bad breakup now compounded with embarrassing fake nudes online. Now no amount of careful behavior can prevent nudes from ‘accidentally’ being posted to social media. All you can do is hope no one ever is interested in making one of you.
If current trends in social media are any indication, should any event of that sort happen, people would post fake nudes of themselves that are much more… ahem… “flattering” than the real thing.
When privacy is all but dead, one will try to make all public info be about what one wishes one’s life was like, not what it really is. Fake photos - like fake news - become a tool to show prominently that which makes you look better, or hide behind noise what doesn’t.
And now I’m depressed thinking of that way-too-close dystopic “future”. Oh welp.
Which, while probably true in such a world, is far less of a problem to me. Because, ultimately, there isn’t removal of agency there. I mean Photoshop is a thing already, this is merely a lowering of that particular bar. I mean we’ve all seen touchups done to photos to make implausibly good looking pictures of their subjects by doing all kinds of ethically questionable* alterations. The disgruntled ex posting pictures against your will (even faked ones) is magnitudes worse in my eyes.
*because the pervasive nature of these photos creates all kinds of unfortunate social expectations, particularly upon young women.
Basically, if you don’t indulge a bad idea, the consequences can never darken your door. Once something is out there, it’s out there, and you have lost control. That was true of photos back when they were on paper, and it’s so much worse now.
The lady has my sympathy, but once you give someone a picture of your goodies, your ability to control who sees your goodies is lost forever. Perhaps the idea of unapproved and presumably unappealing males seeing her naked will deter the next woman who decides to entertain the thought of sending a permanent artifact to an approved and presumably appealing one.
Because: People Are Crap.
There’s a scene in Animal House after Flounder’s brother’s car has been wrecked by his fraternity brothers, and he’s told frankly, “you fucked up, you trusted us.” I know the phrase has popped up in my mind many times since my first viewing, about many broken trusts over the years, from the individual level to the institutional to the governmental and international.
Some would call that victim-blaming, others would note that a lack of judgment about who to trust is a lesson usually learned the hard way. And if the person refuses to learn the lesson, there’s another lesson waiting down the road.
